December 2012

December 27, 2012

Below is a copy of this week's newsletter from IR Magazine. We send these out every week. If you would like to subscribe, please visit our main website and click on the register option.

As the year draws to a close, it’s time to look back at the most read articles on our website during 2012. The top 10 is dominated by features on social media and technology – perhaps unsurprising for an ‘online’ ranking – but stories on roadshows, targeting and CFO-level IR also make the list. As always, we’d love to hear from you if you have any suggestions for topics we should be covering.

10.Western firms move IROs to AsiaIn this feature, we spoke to three companies – two from North America, one from Europe – on the opportunities and challenges of stationing a permanent IRO in Asia.

2.The investor relations app hubThis feature considered which smartphone apps are most useful for day-to-day IR work (as well as which smartphone games keep you entertained in the airport departure lounge).

1.Investors explore social mediaThe number one most read article this year heard from market experts – including Joshua Brown of the Reformed Broker blog and StockTwits' CEO Howard Lindzon – on the extent institutional investors are actually using social media to make investment decisions.

December 21, 2012

Does a career in investor relations offer a good work-life balance? That's the question we put to visitors to our website over the last month. Just over 40 percent of respondents said 'yes'. The majority were less positive, however, answering either 'no' or 'unsure'.

December 10, 2012

Neil Stewart, webinar moderator and IR Magazine’s editor-at-large, kicked off the event with a warning to listeners in the US that they might find some of the discussion ‘scary, and even rather shocking.’

He was talking about a growing trend of super transparency – embodied by the IR team at German energy firm RWE. Panelist Gunhild Grieve, head of RWE’s London IR office, explained that as well as offering guidance on the current year, covering a range of key performance indicators, the company also offers estimates on the year ahead.

But what makes RWE’s guidance policy really stand out is its approach to consensus estimates.‘We have a practice whereby we ask our sell-side analysts to provide us with their numbers: they have them in their models but then [we] also [want them] on a post-restructuring or post-disposal basis,’ said Grieve. ‘We put a revised consensus on our website with those clean numbers, which are comparable with our guidance.’

This is where IROs in the US might start to break a sweat. Growing levels of transparency might be the trend in Europe, but Regulation FD in the US discourages companies from RWE-style openness. Despite this, Jason Whitaker, application specialist at Bloomberg, maintained that an ‘open line of communication’ remains the best practice – no matter where you are or what industry you’re in.

He added that whatever size your business is, if you can give guidance – even in the form of something as simple as a production target – you should be doing it. ‘The evidence seems to be that the more you give guidance, the better your share price,’ he said.

Fellow panelist Chris Bailey, head of global direct investments at Close Brothers Asset Management, agreed. He said that as a fund manager, when ‘people are saying less and less, guess what? We become less inclined to buy their shares.’

Rather than letting macroeconomic ‘wobbles’ deter you from giving guidance, Bailey noted, companies should be doing two things; offering a guidance range and extending predictions into the medium term. A range of between 5 percent and 10 percent offers the leeway that is lost on a very specific number, he explained, while medium-term forecasts encourage your investors to think beyond each quarter – which Bailey said will help attract a more committed investor, too.

‘I appreciate you’ve always got to be careful,’ he added. ‘You’ve always got to factor in what’s happening in the world, but one good thing about a guidance range – particularly something that talks beyond this year – is that you can factor in and absorb some macroeconomic volatility. And on a quarter-by-quarter basis you can say, We’re still on track – it’s been a little bit tough this quarter because of X, Y and Z, but we’re still on track. The market gives you credit for that.’

December 05, 2012

Below is a copy of today's newsletter from IR Magazine. We send these out every week. If you would like to subscribe, please visit our main website and click on the register option.

Excitement is rising in Singapore ahead of the IR Magazine Awards – South East Asia 2012, which take place tomorrow. As with all our awards, the results are based on a survey of hundreds of investors and analysts. Below, we run down five big questions that will be answered on the day.

1. Who will win the battle of the heavyweights? The five companies up for the grand prix for best overall IR (large cap) have at least six nominations each: CapitaLand, DBS Group, StarHub, CIMB and last year’s five-time winner SingTel. Any one of the five could dominate proceedings.

2. Can anyone unseat SingTel in our regional rankings? Along with its haul of awards last year, SingTel also claimed the number one spot in our inaugural IR Magazine South East Asia Top 25. The rankings are decided by adding up each company’s score across all the award categories.

3. Is time up for Singaporean dominance? Traditionally, companies based in Singapore have performed strongly in our awards, at the expense of those from other countries in the region. This could all change tomorrow as Malaysia’s CIMB is in the running for the large-cap grand prix, plus five other awards.

4. Who will win the mid or small cap grand prix? In this category, there are two further companies from outside Singapore that could snatch a big prize. AmBank of Malaysia and Minor International of Thailand are up against Singapore’s Keppel Land, Venture Corporation and Frasers Centrepoint Trust.

5. Will we see a first-time winner? There are a number of companies appearing on short lists for the first time: Indonesia’s Garuda and XL Axiata, Universal Robina Corporation of the Philippines and Malaysia’s Media Prima.